Afghanistan "going to take in the order of 10 years"

[Skye]

In a rah rah article on military deployments here there was an interesting quote by the defence chief.

 

The defence chief was asked how long it would be necessary to combat insurgents with a "hearts and minds" campaign as well as offensive operations.

 

"It is probably going to take in the order of 10 years," Air Chief Marshal Houston said.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/special-forces-may-face-total-recall/2006/09/27/1159337222421.html

 

This sounds fairly reasonable, there still seems to be a fair number Taliban members and they are cashed up with opium money, so it will probably take a while. It'll be interesting to see if NATO can keep supplying forces for ten years, especially to the south.

[husmusen]

Taliban ... Cashed up with Opium money

 

Are you sure about that?

As IIRC about the only useful thing the Taliban did was kill Opium production, I thought it was the Northern Alliance who relied for more on drugs as a financial vehicle, which is part of the reason that Opium is flowing freely in Afghanistan again.

 

Husmusen

[Skye]

I'm not sure, but it's a theory for what's behind this years increased insurgency.

If you look at the map showing main cultivation areas (fig. 4)' date=' you will see that Hilmand province in the South had69,000 hectares of poppy fields this year – almost half of all opium grown in Afghanistan, for an extraordinary 160% increase over 2005.

It is no coincidence that if you look at the security map (fig. 5), you see the same southern region as most affected. In the provinces of Kandahar, Uruzgan and Hilmand drugs and insurgency feed off of each other: instability enables opium growers and traffickers to prosper, while the opium trade funds insurgency.[/quote']

PDF file: http://wwwa.house.gov/international_relations/109/cos092006.pdf#search=%22taliban%20opium%20Antonio%20Maria%20Costa%20%22

 

The Taliban agreed to ban opium growing in return for money from the US, and the ban started in 2000. I've seen news reports that they had taxed it, but I'm not sure how much truth there is to that. Regardless, they had allowed it to continue for years before 2000, so I don't think there's much to say that they are adamantly opposed to it.

[bigOz]

Daily Mail 25/9/06

Former generals who led the Red Army's retreat from Afghanistan in the 1980s yesterday warned British commanders that they will face the same humiliation...

 

General Ruslan Aushev said:

"You will flee from there"...

..."The astonishing thing today is that NATO and the coalition seem to have learned nothing - neither from their own experience or from our experience"...

..."We saw over a period of many years how the country was torn apart by civil war. But in the face of outside aggression Afghans have always put aside their differences and united"...

 

General Ausev also said he believed the Americans, who have 18000 troops in Afghanistan, were preparing toleave the country. "The Americans can't have another Vietnam, so they are saving face", he said " They will say 'We did not withdraw. It was the Australians, the British who withdrew."

 

Some 35 British Soldiers have been killed in southern Afghanistan since their mission there began in March.